The MassDems socially distanced in-person Democratic National Convention Massachusetts delegation watch party last night at Suffolk Downs. Bernie stickers all around me.
The historic moment that Kamala Harris accepted our party’s nomination to be Vice-President of the United States.
Please share widely!
https://news.yahoo.com/she-no-role-biden-condemns-140006520.html
Sure, if you call quashing dissent unity.
“The politics of the lesser evil has always had a nasty tendency to hold to the great old evil and thus to prepare the way for even greater new evils.”
– Hannah Arendt
What new evils will Joe Biden perpetuate that are worse than the old evils of Donald Trump? I get the left wing criticism and shared it during the primary, but to argue he is the same or worse than Trump is to be seriously divorced from reality.
You have the luxury of being a white male in a blue state and can vote their party if you do choose, but it is a privilege the people of color who are hurt the most by this administration do not have.
@”What new evils “
New wars, maybe? Four years of ineffective, corporate-centric leadership which sets the stage for Trump 2.0? I don’t know, but it is hard enough just witnessing how bad things are now without letting my imagination run loose thinking about how much worse things could get.
I was going to come down on you for presuming to speak for non-white non-males, but I guess if I can appeal to Hannah Arendt’s authority, a little virtue signaling on your part is not completely inauthentic.
I’m willing to stipulate that everything I post, or have ever posted, comes from a white male, and my privilege. That hardly makes me unique on this blog, and nothing I say, even if I slobbered all over Joe Biden, would change that. If you want to take away my status as a noble member, start the petition.
“New wars, maybe? Four years of ineffective, corporate-centric leadership which sets the stage for Trump 2.0? I don’t know, but it is hard enough just witnessing how bad things are now without letting my imagination run loose thinking about how much worse things could get.”
I don’t see the evidence for new wars. If anything, Trump has taken us closer to war with Iran than any previous president and only by the grace of God did we avoid an escalation after Sulemani was assassinated by drone in violation of American and international law. If anything, he is pursuing a new Cold War with China and ignoring our allies in Europe and the new Cold War with Russia which is contributing to global instability.
As for corporate centric, I do not see how you can get any worse than a president who values corporate profits over 170,000 American deaths and counting. I just don’t.
Biden was bad on bankruptcy and now endorsed Warren’s position. He was arguably bad on climate and now endorsed Bernie and AOCs position. He has been against TPP as a presidential candidate. He is for a robust public option and higher corporate tax rate repealing the Trump and Bush era tax cuts. He has always been a champion of labor.
He was arguably bad on foreign policy as a senator and was probably the most consistently dovish of President Obama’s national security council. He was even dovish on the Osama raid. He will restore alliances, restore the Cuban opening, restore the Iran Deal, and restore Paris Accords.
So on issues of war and peace, workers rights and corporate power, climate policy, and multilateral foreign policy we know his record and his commitments. We know Trumps record is so much worse.
Back candidates like Alex Morse or Cori Bush who are pushing the party left. Make the squad bigger. Stick with Markey. Vote for ranked choice. There’s a lot you can do enthusiastically downballot if you can’t stomach the ticket up ballot. Hold the nose and move on.
Also it’s not like Biden won a rigged election. My politics, at least on economic issues, is a lot closer to DSA than it is to the DSA. But the socialist candidate, whom I voted for, lost fair and square. Instead if whining about the party, the left should learn to make coalitions and alliances to advance their agenda. AOC could credibly call Markey a Biden style corporate sellout, or she could recognize he was an experienced environmental
legislator and work with him to pass her agenda. She choose the latter path. Progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal worked with centrist Sen. Michael Bennet on the $600/wk provision in the CARES Act. This is called politics, and the left needs to learn how to practice it if it wants to lead.
Well, I appreciate that the attack on my white privilege has been “suspended” , as they say, even if it has been been replaced by an army of straw men.
Who cares if Biden and Trump won their respective nominations fair and square? They are still Biden and Trump.
I see plenty of evidence that the Democrats want to raise tension around the world, and to continue allying the US with some of the most repressive and corrupt regimes in the world.
They explicitly reject a non-violent movement (BDS) and promise to dump arms into the middle east forever.
I’m perplexed that you seem to think that I am some kind of high level strategist. I’m just a voter. I won’t vote for a bad candidate even if he is running against a worse candidate. That’s what Hannah Arendt calls “The politics of lesser evil.” .which is where we started.
So for whom are you voting this year? I’m still waiting for that answer and you have two realistic choices. If you don’t vote at all you can’t complain, and while I reject the premise that Biden is bad I also reject the philosophy of refusing to vote for the supposed lesser of the evils. “None of the above” cannot win an election.
Bob may argue, correctly, that since he votes in MA he can vote for whomever he pleases — including Mickey Mouse — and it won’t make a dime’s worth of difference. The only newsworthy outcome of the MA presidential election results will be whether or not Mr. Biden wins by a historic margin. He probably will not, and it won’t matter even a tiny bit.
My view is that the cynicism he expresses is toxic, especially in today’s culture and especially in today’s Massachusetts. That cynicism was the key target of Mr. Obama’s marvelous speech during the convention.
That cynicism is also the foundation of Mr. Trump’s appeal and always has been. Cynicism like this begets governments like Mr. Trump’s and Mr. McConnell’s.
Cynicism like this is also the hallmark of white privilege and was correctly identified as such at the top of this exchange.
I went through this whole “white privilege” baloney with JConway a couple weeks ago, and pointed out that it takes a certain kind of privilege to ignore issues that are life and death for people in the Middle East and South America. James has evidently forgotten.
If someone from BLM wants to explain how I can overcome my white privilege by aligning my votes with people from South Carolina, I’ll listen, But it’s difficult to keep from laughing when that argument comes from you guys.
Also, I am being instructed to vote for people whose policies I oppose and whose records are just terrible, because otherwise I would be “cynical”. I think it’s really more cynical to vote for what you don’t want.
I don’t always vote for third parties, but I do often enough to remember the catchwords used to get people to fall in line. In the past, voting for third party candidates was labeled naïve, and this year the precise same vote is labeled cynical. Which leads me to conclude that neither term is a serious criticism but merely this year’s agreed upon term of abuse.
So, in answer to Christopher, I’m not voting for Trump or Biden, and will find some alternative.
So let’s wrap this up. We’ll have another election in 2024 and we will be facing the same existential threat in four years, and will have the same chance to fall in line behind some miserable excuse for a Democrat.
Your display of white privilege has been apparent each time it’s been brought to your attention.
Fortunately for America you, like most of us here, vote in Massachusetts and so your presidential vote really is irrelevant just like the rest of us.
I characterized your earlier commentary as “cynical”. This latest installment confirms that characterization. I view your commentary as both cynical and toxic for the reasons I’ve stated earlier.
So let’s indeed wrap this up.
So who is that alternative, and how is that person better than Biden or Trump? In our system voting for a major party nominee isn’t cynical, but realistic. The real privilege in this context is being from Massachusetts, but if everyone took your view then suddenly MA is no longer a sure bet for Biden. It has never been more important IMO to “vote blue no matter who”. Until we have RCV the word I would use for third party votes is “spoiler” and maybe “picky”.
That’s a strange juxtaposition, Christopher, First you admonish me to be realistic, then you pose the wildly unrealistic counterfactual “. . .if everyone took your view. . .”
If everyone took my view, neither Trump nor Biden would get any votes and we would all be better off.
Meanwhile, in answer to your follow up question, I’m leaning toward voting for the Green Party candidate, but I have time to do some research before making a final decision.
It’s a big responsibility, since I now have to factor in the possibility that everyone will vote the way I do.
Hey, I like this question and answer format. Here’s a question for you, Christopher. You recently posted a list of state committee members. Who on that list do you think can be trusted with investigating the smear of Alex Morse? And who of the list might have been involved in the smear itself?
I’ll have more respect once you do decide on a candidate for whom you can make a positive case. Until then I see unproductive sniping.
I’m deliberately keeping my opinions on the Morse bruhaha to myself for now.
@”the Morse bruhaha”
Did you have the same reaction to the right wing groups who conspired to launch the Swift Boat attacks against John Kerry and the GOP operatives who helped them? How about the right wing groups who are currently colluding to attack Hunter Biden, and the Donald Trump administration members who assist them?
It seems pretty clear that Mr. Morse was the victim of a vicious and knowingly false campaign. The state party organization has already acknowledged its role in those attacks.
What more are you waiting for?
I received an email asking DSC members to refrain from comment pending the investigation and I’m trying to respect that.
@received an email:
Fair enough
You mean pending the election. How about Roosevelt et al stepping down pending the investigation? Who is investigating, and who do they report to?
I had the same reaction to the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry, which were false. The attacks on Hunter Biden were/are mainly true, although they are mixed up with a lot garbage, as usual.
As long as we’re playing this game, what was your reaction to the smear of Linda Sansour last week? What was your reaction to what James Carville said about Bernie Sanders last spring?
I thought you wanted “wrap this up”.
If you want to continue to interrogate me, but ignore any questions I ask in return, I guess that’s your privilege.
I’ve asked no questions of you since your suggestion that we wrap it up.
My question that included the Swift Boat reference was directed to Christopher and he answered it.
Cool, cool, cool.
“Nonvoters Are Not Privileged. They Are Disproportionately Lower-Income, Nonwhite, and Dissatisfied With the Two Parties.”, https://theintercept.com/2020/04/09/nonvoters-are-not-privileged-they-are-largely-lower-income-non-white-and-dissatisfied-with-the-two-parties/
I fear you misunderstand jconway’s comment — you’re each saying the same thing.
muh white privilege of luxury
https://twitter.com/Lubchansky/status/1297310330192719872